Russian Nuclear Bombers Fly within 50 miles off California Coast

Four Russian strategic bombers triggered U.S. air defense systems
while conducting practice bombing runs near Alaska this week, with two
of the Tu-95 Bear H aircraft coming within 50 miles of the California
coast, the North American Aerospace Defense Command (Norad) confirmed
Wednesday.

“The last time we saw anything similar was two years ago on the
Fourth of July,” Navy Capt. Jeff Davis, a Norad spokesman, told the Free Beacon.

Davis said the latest Bear H incursions began Monday around 4:30 p.m.
Pacific time when radar detected the four turbo-prop powered bombers
approaching the U.S. air defense zone near the far western Aleutian
Islands.

Two U.S. Air Force F-22 jets were scrambled and intercepted the bombers over the Aleutians.

After tracking the bombers as they flew eastward, two of the four
Bears turned around and headed west toward the Russian Far East. The
bombers are believed to be based at the Russian strategic base near
Anadyr, Russia.

The remaining two nuclear-capable bombers then flew southeast and
around 9:30 P.M. entered the U.S. northern air defense zone off the
coast of Northern California.

Two U.S. F-15 jets were deployed and intercepted the bombers as they
eventually flew within 50 miles of the coast before turning around and
heading west.

A defense official said the four bombers also were supported by two
IL-78 aerial refueling tankers that were used for mid-air refueling
during the operation this week.

The Tu-95 is a long-range strike aircraft capable of carrying nuclear
cruise missiles. Other versions are equipped with
intelligence-gathering sensors and electronic warfare gear. It has a
range of around 9,400 miles without refueling.

Davis said the aircraft “acted professionally” and the bombers appeared to be conducting a training mission.

“They typically do long range aviation training in the summer and it
is not unusual for them to be more active during this time,” he said.
“We assess this was part of training. And they did not enter territorial
airspace.”

The bomber incursion is the latest Russian nuclear saber-rattling
amid stepped up tensions over Moscow’s military annexation of Ukraine’s
Crimea.

Rep. Mike Conaway (R., Texas), a member of the House Armed Services
Committee, called the Russian flights “intentional provocations.”

“Putin is doing this specifically to try to taunt the U.S. and
exercise, at least in the reported world, some sort of saber-rattling,
muscle-flexing kind of nonsense,” Conaway said in an interview. “Truth
of the matter is we would have squashed either one of those [bombers]
like baby seals.”

“It’s a provocation and it’s unnecessary. But it fits in with
[Putin’s] macho kind of saber-rattling,” he said, adding that he expects
Russia will carry out more of these kinds of incidents in the future.

Retired Air Force Lt. Gen. Thomas McInerney, a former Alaska
commander for the North American Aerospace Defense Command, said he does
not remember a case of Russian strategic bombers coming that close to
the U.S. coast.

“Again we see the Obama administration through their covert—but overt
to Mr. Putin—unilateral disarmament, inviting adventurism by the
Russians,” McInerney said in an email.

“At the height of the Cold War I do not remember them getting this
close. Mr. Putin had to approve this mission and he is just showing his
personal contempt for President Obama right after meeting him in
Normandy less than a week ago,” McInerney said. McInerney said no American president has been treated with such disrespect in U.S. history.

“A sad day indeed and at the same time Mosul and Tikrit [Iraq] fall
to radical Islamists after the Obama administration’s failed Iraq
policy,” he added. “He snatched defeat from the jaws of victory yet
again.”

The Alaska-California bombers flight also came a month after a
Russian Su-27 interceptor jet flew dangerously close to a U.S. RC-135
reconnaissance aircraft flying over the Sea of Okhotsk, north of Japan.

In that incident on April 23, the Su-27 jet flew close to the RC-135,
turned to reveal its air-to-air missiles to the crew, and then flew
dangerously close to within 100 feet of the cockpit in a maneuver
military officials called reckless.

Davis said in the past 10 years, 50 Bear H bombers were intercepted
near U.S. air defense zone, although he acknowledged that Monday’s
flight near California was unusual.

In April, a telephone conversation between two Russian ambassadors
was posted on YouTube and appeared to show the diplomats joking about
the Ukraine crisis and discussing the possible incursions in the United
States and Eastern Europe.

The leaked conversation between Igor Nilokaevich Chubarov and Sergey
Viktorovich Bakharev, Russian ambassadors to the African nations Eritrea
and Zimbabwe and Malawi, respectively, includes references to
post-Crimea Russian imperialism to include Eastern Europe and
“Californialand” and “Miamiland.”

Russian Bear H flights elsewhere have increased in recent years. In February 2013, two of the bombers were intercepted as they circled
the U.S. Pacific island of Guam, in a rare long-range incursion. Two Bear Hs also were intercepted near Alaska on April 28, 2013.

A Russian Bear H incursion in Asia took place in in July 2013 when
two Tu-95s were intercepted by Japanese and South Korean jets near the
Korean peninsula and Japan’s northern Hokkaido Island.

The July 4, 2012, bomber flights near the West Coast were the first
time since the Cold War that Russian jets has traveled so close to the
U.S. coastline.

That action followed an earlier intrusion by Tu-95s near Alaska that
were part of large-scale strategic nuclear exercises by the Russians
aimed at practicing strikes on enemy air defenses.

Russia has stepped up provocative nuclear war games in recent years
as part of propaganda efforts to display Moscow’s dislike of U.S.
missile defenses in Europe.